But what was now to be done? Why, clearly make the
best of the matter, eat the chop and leave the sherry. So I
commenced eating the chop, which was by this time nearly cold.
After eating a few morsels I looked at the sherry: "I may as well
take a glass," said I. So with a wry face I poured myself out a
glass.
"What detestable stuff!" said I, after I had drunk it. "However,
as I shall have to pay for it I may as well go through with it."
So I poured myself out another glass, and by the time I had
finished the chop I had finished the sherry also.
And now what was I to do next? Why, my best advice seemed to be to
pay my bill and depart. But I had promised the poet to patronize
his house, and had by mistake ordered and despatched a pint and
chop in a house which was not the poet's. Should I now go to his
house and order a pint and chop there? Decidedly not! I had
patronised a house which I believed to be the poet's; if I
patronised the wrong one, the fault was his, not mine - he should
have been more explicit. I had performed my promise, at least in
intention.
Perfectly satisfied with the conclusion I had come to, I rang the
bell. "The bill?" said I to the handmaid.
"Here it is!" said she, placing a strip of paper in my hand.
I looked at the bill, and, whether moderate or immoderate, paid it
with a smiling countenance, commanded the entertainment highly, and
gave the damsel something handsome for her trouble in waiting on
me.
Reader, please to bear in mind that as all bills must be paid, it
is much more comfortable to pay them with a smile than with a
frown, and that it is much better by giving sixpence, or a shilling
to a poor servant, which you will never miss at the year's end, to
be followed from the door of an inn by good wishes, than by giving
nothing to be pursued by cutting silence, or the yet more cutting
Hm!
"Sir," said the good-looking, well-ribboned damsel, "I wish you a
pleasant journey, and whenever you please again to honour our
establishment with your presence, both my master and myself shall
be infinitely obliged to you."
CHAPTER XXXIX
Oats and Methodism - The Little Girl - Ty Gwyn - Bird of the Roof -
Purest English - Railroads - Inconsistency - The Boots.
IT might be about four in the afternoon when I left L- bound for
Pen Caer Gybi, or Holyhead, seventeen miles distant.
